My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin (best mobile ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Miles Franklin
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I was under the impression that my nightly ramble was not specially noticed by anyone, but I was mistaken. Mr. MâSwat, it appears, suspected me of having a lover, but was never able to catch me red-handed.
The possibility of a girl going out at night to gaze at the stars and dream was as improbable a thought for him as flying is to me, and having no soul above mud, had I attempted an explanation he would have considered me mad, and dangerous to have about the place.
Peter, junior, had a sweetheart, one Susie Duffy, who lived some miles on the other side of the Murrumbidgee. He was in the habit of courting her every Sunday and two or three nights during the week, and I often heard the clang of his stirrup-irons and the clink of hobble-chain when he returned late; but on one occasion I stayed out later than usual, and he passed me going home. I stood still and he did not see me, but his horse shied violently. I thought he would imagine I was a ghost, so called out:
âIt is I.â
âWell, Iâll be hanged! What are ye doinâ at this time ev night. Ainât yuz afraid of ghosts?â
âOh dear no. I had a bad headache and couldnât sleep, so came out to try if a walk would cure it,â I explained.
We were a quarter of a mile or so from the house, so Peter slackened his speed that I might keep pace with him. His knowledge of etiquette did not extend as far as dismounting. There is a great difference between rudeness and ignorance. Peter was not rude; he was merely ignorant. For the same reason he let his mother feed the pigs, clean his boots, and chop wood, while he sat down and smoked and spat. It was not that he was unmanly, as that this was the only manliness he had known.
I was alone in the schoolroom next afternoon when Mr. MâSwat sidled in, and after stuttering and hawing a little, delivered himself of:
âI want to tell ye that I donât hold with a gu-r-r-r-l going out of nights for to meet young men: if ye want to do any coortinâ yuz can do it inside, if itâs a decent young man. I have no objections to yer hanginâ yer cap up to our Peter, only that ye have no prawpertyâ âin yerself I like ye well enough, but we have other views for Peter. Heâs almost as good as made it sure with Susie Duffy, anâ as ole Duffy will have a bit ev prawperty I want him to git her, anâ wouldnât like ye to spoil the fun.â
Peter was âtall and freckled and sandy, face of a country lout,â and, like Middletonâs rouse-about, âhadnât any opinions, hadnât any ideas,â but possessed sufficient instinct and common bushcraft with which, by hard slogging, to amass money. He was developing a moustache, and had a âgu-r-r-r-l;â he wore tight trousers and long spurs; he walked with a sidling swagger that was a cross between shyness and flashness, and took as much pride in his necktie as any man; he had a kind heart, honest principles, and would not hurt a fly; he worked away from morning till night, and contentedly did his duty like a bullock in the sphere in which God had placed him; he never had a bath while I knew him, and was a man according to his lights. He knew there was such a thing as the outside world, as I know there is such a thing as algebra; but it troubled him no more than algebra troubles me.
This was my estimation of Peter MâSwat, junior. I respected him right enough in his place, as I trust he respected me in mine, but though fate thought fit for the present to place us in the one groove, yet our lives were unmixable commodities as oil and water, which lay apart and would never meet until taken in hand by the omnipotent levellerâ âdeath.
Marriage with Peter MâSwat!
Consternation and disgust held me speechless, and yet I was half inclined to laugh at the preposterousness of the thing, when Peterâs father continued:
âIâm sorry if youâve got smitten on Peter, but I know youâll be sensible. Ye see I have a lot of children, and when the place is divided among âem it wonât be much. I tell ye wot, old Duffy has a good bit of money and only two children, Susie and Mick. I could get you to meet Mickâ âhe maynât be so personable as our Peter,â he reflected, with evident pride in his weedy firstborn, and he got no farther, for I had been as a yeast-bottle bubbling up, and now went off bang!
âSilence, you ignorant old creature! How dare you have the incomparable impertinence to mention my name in conjunction with that of your boor of a son. Though he were a millionaire I would think his touch contamination. You have fallen through for once if you imagine I go out at night to meet anyoneâ âI merely go away to be free for a few minutes from the suffocating atmosphere of your odious home. You must not think that because you have grasped and slaved and got a little money that it makes a gentleman of you; and never
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